December 6, 2020

 

Dear Everyone,

I just got back from Roger’s.  He, Andy, and I watched the Bears lose a game literally at the last minute to the Detroit Lions. Aargh. It has not been a good season for them.

This weekend is the changeover from our old information system (a crappy combination of Word, CoPath (the pathology data entry/database),Voicebrook (voice recognition software), and Care Connection (the hospital IS)) to our new system, which has the benefit of only being two programs: EPIC/Beaker (hospital/pathology IS) and Dragon (voice recognition).  I’m sure the next few weeks will be rough, but I am optimistic that the changeover will be beneficial. I have actually signed up to get ‘Builder” training, which entails two 3-day classes (one next week and one in early January) for generic EPIC training, and another one in March for specialized Beaker training.  I can already see some improvements I would like to make to the system from what I have seen of it from the training environment, but I am not sure that the trainer really mimics the live program that well.  In any case, I will have plenty of time to play with building something better, since I will no longer be fully employed come January. We’ll see if they can find any paid work for me to do at Christ in the future. 

I did look at a part time job at Tempus, a molecular oncology laboratory on the near West Side.  Tempus does Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of tumors - - basically a system of cutting the DNA up into millions of pieces and ten using massive parallel processing to sequence the genome.  They zero in on specific mutations that novel anti-cancer drugs act on specifically.  Never mind that most tumor don’t have treatable mutations, or that most people who do have the right mutations develop resistance to these drugs eventually - - they do extend lifespan, and usually have relatively minor side effects (except for the pocketbook).  Tempus also does a lot of PDL1 testing.  This is what is known as a checkpoint inhibitor. So, successful tumors (i.e. bad tumors that will kill you) often make proteins that inhibit the immune system, preventing your body from killing the tumor cells.  So, drugs that can block these proteins allow your immune system to find and eliminate tumor cells.  This has been an important cancer breakthrough of the last 3-5 years, and is only getting bigger.  We can test for expression of PDL-1 by labelling a tissue slide with colored antibodies to the PDL-1 protein.  We do stuff like this all the time in Pathology.  There is a bit of a twist here, because like Herceptin (an anti-breast cancer drug that looks for expression of the HER2-neu protein), you have to use a proprietary antibody made by the drug manufacturer, and use a special assessment protocol.  Anyway the job at Tempus was either circling tumor tissue on microscope slides for NGS, or reading PDL-1 slides, and the hours are from 6 PM- 9 PM weeknights, and Sundays - - this is really a job for moonlighting residents, and I will probably pass on it.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving with Owen and Alison, Lucas, Jasper, and Vivian.  I made home-made pigs-in-a-blanket three ways (with cocktail wieners, spicy lamb sausage/merguez, and some kind of Greek lamb/beef sausage), and supplied champagne.  Veuve Clicqout and Pol Roger taste almost the same; maybe Pol Roger is a little sweeter.  Owen made a great dinner with a smoked fish appetizer, roast turkey, roasted small white potatoes, green beans with ginger, roasted Brussel sprouts, and sage (?) and chestnut stuffing.  There were also three delicious pies – cherry, apple and pumpkin. Everyone had more than enough.  Since Thanksgiving Roger is using the walker more and the wheelchair less. He will started up with a physical therapist soon.

We rented a movie this weekend, First Cow.  I would not recommend this movie; I thought it would be funnier than it was.  Although it does have amusing parts, it is very slow, and often filmed in darkness.  Cindy did not like it at all.

 I have finished two interesting books: 99% Invisible City, which is a collection of short vignettes about the bits and parts that make a livable city.  It comes from a podcast production of the same name.  Basically, a book filled with interesting trivia.  It was good, but I have to say I prefer a book Owen gave to Lucas years ago that I stole called A Field Guide to Roadside Technology.  I am also almost finished with Wagnerism.  Much as I like Wagner’s music, I can hardly understand how his music and philosophy permeated so much of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  I think it may be because people had nothing else to occupy their minds.  Wagner was putting out easily transportable ideas (philosophical pamphlets and musical scores).  I don’t think Wagner had anywhere near the philosophical rigor of Darwin, Marx, or even Nietzsche. Still, today we don’t see philosophico-politcial cults revolving around George Lucas or Stephen Sondheim.  The book is a slog, and as the reviewer from the Guardian puts it, “ In this encyclopaedic book, the plethora of interpreters makes Wagner mean anything at all, which ultimately makes him mean nothing in particular. “

We had our second book club, where we discussed the Tenth Muse.  This was a fun and lively discussion.  The star, of course, was Everett Brown.  Ariana is taking suggestions for our next read in January - - email her if you are interested in participation.

Love, H

Owls have been hooting near our house.  Are they looking for Robbie?